Having teased us earlier in the week with a cryptic advert, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi’s reveal has finally taken place and they have taken a swipe at their two biggest rivals – Samsung and Apple.

The Mi Note, with a 1920 x 1080 resolution display, was launched to great fanfare in Beijing and is clearly a direct competitor for Samsung’s Note 4 and Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus. It is lighter and thinner than both models as well as having a much greater pixel density.

Xiaomi also revealed its higher end model. The MiNote Pro will house a Snapdragon 810 64 bit eight-core processor and will run a 2560 x 1440 display at 515 PPO on its 5.7-inch 2K screen. On its Twitter page, Xiaomi described it as ‘literally the best smartphone in the world to date’ and with those specs it might be hard to disagree. The MiNote Pro will be available later in 2015.

Despite only being a company for under five years, Xiaomi has made incredible progress in the smartphone, tablet and phablet market, racing well clear of competitors and challenging the industry pace-setters Samsung and Apple.